


But The Need In Me Is Way Too Much

by Andian



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Fake AH Crew, M/M, Scenting, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:48:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22742014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andian/pseuds/Andian
Summary: Jeremy picked up one of the crates, groaning a bit at the weight.“What kind of alpha needs this many dick pills?” he wheezed.“Technically they are supposed to make your rut come on faster,” Ryan said.“So they are still “make your dick hard” pills then."
Relationships: Background Implied Gavin Free/Michael Jones, Jeremy Dooley/Ryan Haywood
Comments: 12
Kudos: 160





	But The Need In Me Is Way Too Much

Ryan being an alpha was almost too much of a stereotype. The rest of the crew had at least some decency to go against type.  
  
Michael for example was loud and angry and aggressive. Jeremy had wondered when he had first met him if he was compensating for being an omega, the same way Jeremy had done in the past. Any such thoughts had quickly been dispelled though once he had gotten to know Michael better. He just really had that short of a temper.

“Hands in the air, fuckers! And leave them there!”  
  
Like now for example.

“You guys in the warehouse already?” Gavin’s voice crackled in his ear, and probably also Michael’s. Michael who was currently pointing his gun at the three people in front of them because the concept of stealth missions was completely wasted on him. His scent had turned earthy, a clear sign of how excited he was about their current situation. 

Jeremy would have sighed loudly if he hadn’t completely expected this.

“Remember to make sure you disable the cameras before you go inside otherwise they will see you and-“

“I said hands in the air, motherfuckers!”

Gavin’s well-meaning but ultimately useless rambling was interrupted by Michael starting to shoot and Jeremy cursing and ducking behind a crate.

“So, they saw us,” he hissed into the earpiece, hoping Gavin could hear him over the shots being fired. Michael was crouching next to him, shooting over the crate. Jeremy hoped he was hitting something. He peered over the crate himself, saw one guy doing the same thing and quickly yanked his gun up.

He was quicker. The thick smell of blood flooded the warehouse, mixing with Michael’s earth smell and the tangy smell of fear that had started spreading.  
  
„I hear shooting,“ Gavin's voice came in. “There shouldn't be any shooting.”  
  
“Yeah, you tell that to Michael.”  
  
“You need back-up? Ryan is close by, he can be there in a few minutes.”  
  
“It's okay, we can deal,” Jeremy said and peeked over the crate again. The guy he had shot had gone down but there were still two people left. Then came a well-aimed shot from Michael at his right and a loud scream. One now, Jeremy mentally corrected himself.

Their odds were getting better. From the way the room started to smell even more like fear, he wasn’t the only one aware of this.  
  
He threw Michael a look and gestured around the crate. Michael grinned sharply, showing too much teeth and nodded. Silently the two of them made their way to the sides of the crates.

Jeremy raised three fingers, silently counting down. At zero, Michael and he jumped up and ran towards the man, shooting to keep him from taking aim at them.

They somehow made it without getting shot themselves. Without hesitating Jeremy aimed his gun at the man, shooting him in the shoulder. He let out a pained scream and dropped to the ground.  
  
“Fucking omega bitches!” The man yelled, wreathing on the floor, hand on his bleeding shoulder.  
  
From up close Jeremy could smell the alpha on him. And his fear, overpowering even the scent of blood, thick and heavy like a cloud around him. It somewhat undercut the anger in his voice.  
  
“Yeah, yeah, go and suck your knotted dick,” Michael said and hit him on the head with his gun, knocking him out. Without another look at him Michael turned towards the crates. 

He opened one of them, letting out a loud whistle.

“That's enough dick pills to keep every alpha in Los Santos hard for an entire year,” Michael said.

“Michael, Jeremy, you guys okay?” Gavin sounded a bit worried.

Michael pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the boxes of counterfeit Viagra.  
  
There was silence for a moment and then Gavin's voice came back on the radio.  
  
“That's a lot of dick pills.”  
  
“Yeah, want some for yourself?”  
  
There was undignified squeak coming through the radio.

“My dick works fine!” Gavin protested.

Michael just laughed and closed the crate again and Jeremy couldn't hold back a snort either. Gavin was an odd case of an alpha. If Jeremy's nose hadn't immediately pegged Gavin as an alpha, he'd have put the man squarely into the omega category.   
  
He could be ruthless as hell if the chips were down but other times he was probably the least scary member of the crew. Far from what society considered a stereotypical alpha.  
  
“Get Ryan here,” Michael then said. “We need help to get all those crates in the truck. And help with the bodies too, I guess.”  
  
“How come you call me for the clean-up but not for the fun part?” a voice said.

Talking about the societal ideal of an alpha, Jeremy thought as Ryan sauntered into the warehouse. He had long left puberty behind yet he still felt like a hormone-driven sixteen-year-old whenever he smelt Ryan.

Underneath that always lingering smell of leather and paint, Ryan smelt sharp and biting. Like cold steel and gasoline. Jeremy refused to think closer about how much he had come to like those smells.

Ryan stopped next to one of the dead guys.

“Not bad,” he said, examining the bullet wound.

“That one is all Jeremy,” Michael said, already lifting up one of the crates and walking towards the other side of the warehouse.

“Good job,” Ryan said, sounding impressed.

Jeremy shrugged.

“Got lucky,” he mumbled.  
  
He threw a look at the men lying on the floor, two dead and one unconscious.  
  
This was supposed to go down quietly. Go in, get the crates, get out. Don't get noticed.  
  
“Geoff is not going to be happy with this,” Jeremy sad loudly.  
  
“Geoff is never happy,” Ryan said which, fair point.

But Geoff and Jack were currently in Liberty City, having some talks with “interested parties” as Geoff had called them.  
  
It would be a few days before Geoff could scream at them in person about this particular mess though it likely wouldn't prevent some angry voicemails in his near future.

Jeremy was fully prepared to let Michael deal with that one.  
  
He picked up one of the crates, groaning a bit at the weight.

“Who needs this many dick pills?” he wheezed. Ryan had picked up a crate himself, not looking at all bothered by the weight, the bastard.

“Technically they are supposed to make your rut come on faster,” Ryan said.

“So they are still “make your dick hard” pills then.”  
  
Ryan let out a laugh, tinted with genuine amusement, smelling relaxed and happy. Jeremy could feel his own scent changing, mirroring Ryan's, his body wanting to show the alpha close by that he was feeling similar to him. It had happened before but it was slowly starting to become routine.

He hastened his steps, trying to get away from Ryan.  
  
This was starting to become tiring. It's not like Ryan would ever comment on how Jeremy's body was betraying him more and more when he was around the other man. It was a fact of life that you couldn't completely control your scent and your body's reaction, no matter how much your mind disagreed with your biology. 

Hell, even Geoff's scent changed around Jack and Ryan and even Gavin whenever his heats were coming closer. An omega, reacting to alphas close by. It meant little if there was no actual intent behind it though, if you didn't purposefully let another person smell if and how much you were actually interested.  
  
Problem was, Jeremy thought somewhat grimly, that he really was interested. Not just a little bit.  
  
Problem was, Ryan didn't smell interested. At all.

“Why the fuck exactly are you sitting in the car and we are carrying this shit?” Michael interrupted his thoughts, coming back towards him empty-handed.

“Cause I am the driver! Jack said so!” Gavin's whiny voice came back.  
  
“Well, Jack is not here, is she? So get your ass out of the car and help us get those bullshit boxes into the truck!”

Michael sounded annoyed but he sure didn't smell like it, Jeremy thought. Way too much of a banana scent hanging around him. He shuddered as he imagined how Gavin smelt like now, probably like he rolled around in a bunch of grapes.

The two mirroring each others’ scents was like a nauseating fruit salad of arousal and Jeremy wasn't even sure if it was on accident or if they actually were scent-flirting. They probably didn't know either anymore.  
  
He wouldn't mind so much if they'd only stopped doing it when he had to share a car with them.  
  
Without thinking he pressed his crate into Michael's hands who took with a slightly confused frown.

“Gavin and you get the crates in the truck, Ryan and me will get the rest,” Jeremy said.  
  
His nose was way too sensitive right now for him to be around the two of them that long. Maybe his heat was coming on early or something, he thought as he walked back to the warehouse. The suppressants kept it to an annual occurrence but they had also fucked his cycle over more than once in the past.

Wonderful, he absolutely was looking forward to three days of rapid jerking off while trying and failing to not think of Ryan.

With a sigh he walked back into the warehouse. Ryan hadn't passed him on the way in and he was preparing himself to tease him for being lazy when he noticed that the other man wasn't there.  
  
“Ryan?” His hand automatically reached for his gun.

“Over here,” came the muffled answer and Jeremy relaxed, letting go of his weapon.

He followed Ryan’s voice, making his way to a side room. He stopped on the doorstep when he was suddenly hit with a strong smell.

“They made the dick pills themselves?” he said with a loud groan.  
  
Ryan was standing in the middle of a laboratory. Rather, he was standing in a dirty room, surrounded by a few rickety tables covered with Bunsen burners and half broken flasks.  
  
It looked like a meth lab and smelt like a locker room full of alphas. Jeremy crinkled his nose at the overwhelming smell, annoyed at the way his own body immediately went into overdrive to push out both a calming scent that smelt like saltwater and something like strawberries and oranges.  
  
Great, his heat was really close if he was getting aroused by an empty room that just smelt like alpha.

“If the end results are as bad as their equipment, we can't sell those,” Ryan said calmly, seemingly not noticing Jeremy's slightly aroused smell at all.  
  
“I thought they had stolen the pills.”  
  
“Geoff thought so too. He wouldn't have sent us to steal third-rate pills, manufactured in some shitty drug lab.”  
  
Ryan had picked up a flask filled with something that smelt like the most enticing thing ever. A vision of a bunch of alphas close to a rut, sweaty and muscular and maybe with face paint on, flashed through Jeremy's mind. It reminded Jeremy of the porn mags he had as a teenager, the one that came with scratch and sniff cards of the alphas and omegas portrayed. They had never lasted very long sadly.  
  
“We should bottle this up and sell it,” he said, only half-joking. None of the aroma dispensers that had started to replace the scratch and sniff cards of Jeremy's teenager years had ever smelt half as good.

“It's pure pheromones and nothing else. Alphas take those pills and it will do God-knows-what with their bodies.”  
  
Ryan clearly had spent too much time around Matt if he knew that much about drugs.  
  
“Great, so we shot up this place for nothing,“ Jeremy mumbled. Dead bodies were hard to avoid in their line of business but too many of them tended to become a liability. The only reason they could get away with even this many was that Geoff showed hardly any interest in flying under the radar of the LSPD.  
  
“Let me get a sample of this, Matt can figure out just how bad those things really are,” Ryan said.

He threw a critical look at the dirty beaker he was holding, probably rightfully deciding that this would only end in disaster. Then he looked at the shelves, haphazardly shoved into the corner of the room. He leaned closer to the beaker and took a cautious sniff.

“Dude,” Jeremy blubbered. “Really now?!” If that thing smelled like liquid sex to him, he couldn't imagine it would leave Ryan unaffected.  
  
Ryan shrugged.

“I can control myself,” he said, that usual blandness in his voice that appeared whenever somebody pointed out his alpha status. “Nothing to worry about.”  
  
It was probably meant as friendly reassurement that Ryan wouldn't suddenly start hitting on Jeremy but his mind, feeling a bit scrambled due to the onslaught of potent alpha pheromone in the room, took it as rejection.

His own fruity smell, stupid apples and stupid strawberries, he hated them, dulled slightly. He hoped the smell of the room would mark the bitter smell of his disappointment. Damn it, he thought, sometimes he really wished scent-blockers were an actual thing and not just a Black Mirror plot device. He could use some right now.

Ryan meanwhile had made his way over to the shelves, taking a few of the beakers there and sniffing them again. He grinned triumphantly at the third one.

“That's the one,” he said. “It's a miracle those guys weren't constantly going into a rut or trying to fight each other, this stuff is strong.”  
  
“Outsourced the actual production to omegas maybe,” Jeremy said.  
  
“I don't think orgies instead of fighting makes for a more productive work environment,” Ryan said.

So Ryan was in fact fully aware what that smell was doing to Jeremy and he was still acting so nonchalantly. This day was just getting better and better with each passing moment.

“Get the stuff somewhere where we don't have to smell it so we can get out of here,” Jeremy said, not in the mood anymore to keep joking around.

Ryan reached for a plastic bottle that looked somewhat clean, at least from the distance. He very carefully poured the liquid from the beaker into the bottle and Jeremy very carefully did not stare at his strong steady hands while doing so.

“Let's get the rest of those crates and then let's get the hell out of here,” Jeremy said as Ryan walked towards him.

He had already half-turned away when it happened.

The bottle in Ryan's hand broke. Rather the bottom just suddenly fell out, followed by the contents of the bottle. The liquid spilled all over Ryan.

There was a long moment where neither of them moved. Jeremy stared at Ryan who stared at the now empty bottle in his hand.

“This laboratory has the worst fucking equipment,” Jeremy then said, his voice sounding as if it was coming from far away.

Then the smell hit him.

It had been bad before. But now Jeremy wanted to tear his clothes off, get on his back and just _beg_.

Before it had just been the scent of alphas in rut, nothing else. No fruity smell of arousal, no scents trying to mirror his own. The abstract idea of an alpha ready to fuck, turning his body on but leaving him cold otherwise.

Now it was Ryan though. Ryan whose scent changed completely. Jeremy had only gotten whiffs of Ryan's true scent before, the gasoline and the steel. Now it seemed to be everywhere, surrounding and completely overwhelming him. And then there was the scent of arousal. It smelled like a fucking pear orchard had suddenly appeared inside the laboratory. Ryan's body going into overdrive, getting ready to … well, getting ready to fuck. Going into rut.

Jeremy took a deep breath to clear his swimming head and regretted it immediately when he just took in even more of Ryan's scent.

“Don't worry, this is … this not a problem,” Ryan then said and Jeremy's head snapped up.

“Dude, you smell like the aroma diffuser aisle of every porn shop out there!”

Worse, he smelt better than those aisles. Jeremy wanted to bury his nose in Ryan's neck and just _breathe_.

“It's fine, I can … I can control this.” Ryan's voice sounded strained. His body was trembling slightly and he was staring straight at Jeremy. Jeremy felt his face heat up under the intensity of Ryan’s scent, of his pure want, his own apple-strawberry scent mingling with Ryan's pear smell.

At this point it might become less a problem of Ryan controlling himself and more about Jeremy failing to do so.

Then something started smelling like grapes.

“Why does it smell like a porno in here?” Gavin asked, peering into the room. He had the worst timing, Jeremy thought grimly. The absolute worst.

Ryan's scent thickened even more and there came the smell of burning tires and smoke. Gavin instinctively took a step back. They were all more than familiar with the smell of Ryan's anger but it was rarely directed at either of them.  
  
“Y-you okay in there?” Gavin squeaked. Ryan growled and then looked embarrassed.

“You should … you should go. And tell Michael to stay away,” Jeremy said quietly, not looking at Gavin. It didn't quite work, Ryan's eyes snapped towards him and the aggressive scent, pure anger at the other alpha who had dared infringe on his territory, on the available omega in front of him, thickened even more.

Jeremy took a step towards him without thinking. He could hear Gavin scrambling away behind him.

“It's okay, Gavin is gone,” he said. He tried to push out some of his saltwater smell, trying to calm Ryan down a bit. It worked well with Michael and Jack but Ryan had never been one to let himself be influenced by Jeremy's scent, whether it was done on purpose or not.

His body was a mess though and the only thing he was pushing towards Ryan was his own arousal. Ryan took a deep breath and then closed his eyes.

“I'm not doing this,” he mumbled. “I'm not doing this,” he repeated. It sounded like a mantra and not like he was actually talking to Jeremy.  
  
He should leave, the thought shot through Jeremy. He should go and close the door and let Ryan figure this out by himself. His presence was making things worse, was pushing Ryan from an almost into a full-blown rut.

He couldn't though. His entire body was screaming at him to stay, to show Ryan that he was a good omega, that he could be so good for him. And if he was just good enough, maybe Ryan would still want him afterwards.

He could have ignored it if it had been just his body. But his own treacherous mind and heart were whispering similar things.

“I'm not doing this,” Ryan was still repeating to himself. “I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this. I don't _want_ to do this.”

It was like a bucket of cold water. Not enough to deter his body, wanting the alpha in front of him to fuck him.

But enough for his dizzy mind to think clearly for a moment.

He took a step back. It took all the control he had left to do so.

Then another step. Ryan's eyes snapped open, watching him.

Jeremy said nothing just took another step away from him. His body was fighting him, telling him that getting away from the alpha in front of them, so clearly available and ready to bred, was the last thing they should do.

Another step away. Ryan was still watching him, saying nothing. His hands were clenched into fists, his body so tense it looked ready to snap. For a moment Jeremy wondered if Ryan would jump him before he realized that Ryan was holding himself back.

I don't _want_ to do this, it echoed in Jeremy's head.

Another step. Ryan's scent changed again, the anger now gone completely. The fruity smell had returned, the peaches tinged with apple-strawberry and Jeremy could have sighed. Ryan's scent was mirroring Jeremy's, begging the other man to stay, showing that he wanted this.

But Ryan didn't actually want it, Jeremy thought. Only his body did, not Ryan himself.

One more step and he'd be at the door.

There was snowy desperation coming of Ryan now, cold winter storms as Ryan's body begged Jeremy to stay.

But he was at the door now. One last step and he quickly closed it behind him, tightly holding it shut.  
  
There was a loud noise coming from inside, something crashing to the ground and Jeremy closed his eyes, trying not to breathe too deeply.  
  
Ryan's anger had returned, the scent of smoke noticeable even through the door, the alpha inside of him angry at having the omega leave.

Ryan wasn't coming after him though. Wasn't trying to get through the door.

Slowly Jeremy let go of the door and took a step back, taking a deep breath. The air in the warehouse smelt stale and dusty, nothing compared to how the laboratory had smelled.

It cleared his mind a bit, something that was direly necessary.

“You okay?” Michael said from the other side of the warehouse, keeping a healthy distance.

“I'm fine,” Jeremy said. He didn't feel like it.

“Let's wait outside until Ryan feels ... better,” he said and walked over to Michael.  
  
It was an awkward three hours. Any thought of checking in on Ryan was quickly dismissed. Jeremy wasn't in the mood to retrigger Ryan's rut again and sending Gavin would end even worse. Jack would have been useful, she was a master in using her scent to calm other people down but she wasn't here. They only quickly went back in to tie up and gag the unconscious gang member.  
  
Nobody else arrived at the warehouse during their wait, Geoff's intel having at least been correct about the fact that the gang was a small outfit.

It was almost late afternoon when Ryan finally emerged from the warehouse. Jeremy was the first to spot him, both Michael and Gavin too occupied with the card game they had started to pay much attention. Ryan stopped some feet away from them and then gestured towards wherever he had likely parked his motorcycle before disappearing without a word. He had smelt better, Jeremy thought, but it was clear that he was in no mood to spend the next hour with the three of them in one car.  
  
“Well, that's over with,” Michael said breezily, throwing his cards down. “Let's get those crates and then we can finally fuck off. I'll start screaming if I have to spend another goddamn minute in this fucking place.”  
  
“I was about to win!” Gavin protested, running after Michael as the two of them bickered their way to the warehouse.

Jeremy was left staring at the spot Ryan had disappeared from for a long moment before letting out a loud sigh and following the two.

They saw Ryan again in the evening when he returned to HQ.

“Got it out of your system?” Michael said in lieu of a greeting, lying stretched out on the couch.

It was a stupid question to ask, Ryan didn't smell like sex.

Ryan just made a rude gesture and disappeared into one of the bedrooms without a word.

Gavin shrugged, stretching slightly before reaching for his controller again.

“It sucks,” he said, sounding sympathetic. “Your head gets all mushy and stuff and you just want to fuck. No matter the person. Like even Geoff starts smelling good when I am getting close to my rut.”  
  
“You want to fuck Geoff?” Michael asked amused.

“I don't want to fuck Geoff!” Gavin protested.

“You just said he smells good, I am pretty sure you want to fuck him.”  
  
“That's not what I meant!”  
  
Jeremy ignored their continued bickering, staring at the empty door. He had been able to ignore his own feelings and thoughts well enough when he was still concerned about Ryan but now they were returning with a vengeance.  
  
_I don't want to do this.  
_  
He had been fully aware that he had little to no chance with Ryan. Every hook his body had thrown out to catch Ryan, every scent meant to entice the alpha in Ryan, had been met with absolutely no reaction.

 _I don't want to do this.  
  
_Still, there was something even worse about having it laid out so bluntly.

“You should talk to Ryan,” Gavin then said suddenly. Jeremy looked up, confused.  
  
“So things don't get awkward. I mean, it's just body stuff and so on but I'd feel bad if that happened around you or Michael or Geoff.”  
  
“Don't worry, Geoff and Jeremy are smart enough to not want to fuck you,” Michael deadpanned.

Jeremy decided that no matter how awkward the conversation with Ryan would be, it couldn't be worse than listening to another second of Michael and Gavin doing their married couple routine.

With a sigh he stood up and walked towards the bedroom Ryan had disappeared into. He knocked and waited.

“It's open,” came the muffled answer.

He stepped inside and closed the door, thinking that they didn't need an audience for this.

The moment the door snapped shut behind him he realized though that maybe Ryan wasn't all that keen on being alone with him.

He froze, half-wondering if he should open the door again. Though, Jeremy thought, that would just make it worse, now that the door was already closed, wouldn't it?  
  
His thoughts were interrupted by Ryan letting out a soft chuckle.

“It's fine,” he said. He smelt freshly showered, his hair still slightly wet. Jeremy realized that he was covertly scenting the air, trying to smell if Ryan was still close to a rut.

He stopped, feeling embarrassed about it.

“You okay?” he asked instead.

Ryan shrugged.  
  
“Could be worse. Not a huge fan of getting drugged.”  
  
“Least we know now that the pills are working?” Jeremy joked.

It didn't quite hit the mark, Ryan's face froze briefly and Jeremy cursed inwardly.

“Look,” Ryan then said after a silence that went one just bit too long to be comfortable. “I want to apologize.”  
  
“Dude,” Jeremy protested. “You really don't need to, it...”  
  
“It still happened and I imagine it must have been a bit …. uncomfortable for you,” Ryan cut him off. “Seriously, I smelt like I was about to fuck any omega in a five mile radius.”

“Well, good thing I was the only one around then,” Jeremy said without thinking and then bit his tongue.

Damn, way to make this about yourself you idiot, he thought.  
  
“Nothing happened and you are okay so no reason to apologize,” he quickly added, hoping Ryan would ignore the first part.  
  
Ryan stared at him.  
  
“What do you mean, good thing you were the only one around?” Ryan's voice sounded weird. Jeremy felt a wave of panic rise in him. He really didn't want to talk about this.  
  
“I just mean that it's good that there wasn't anybody else there that you might have actually wanted to … you know...” Jeremy said, feeling his face heat up even more as he continued digging his own grave.  
  
Ryan just kept staring at him.  
  
“Somebody I actually want to...?”  
  
Jeremy wanted to die.

“Somebody you are attracted to” he clarified. He smelt like an entire flower shop on Valentine's day, his embarrassment filling up the room.  
  
There was another long moment of awkward silence and then Ryan laughed. Loudly. Jeremy bristled slightly, embarrassment turning into even sweeter smelling humiliation.

“You really think I'm not attracted to you?” Ryan gasped out between laughs. “After I almost went into a rut because of you?”  
  
Jeremy looked at him blankly.

“I mean the pheromones...” he began.  
  
“Made it worse but it didn't help at all that you were there,” Ryan interrupted him, having finally stopped laughing. He mustered Jeremy again, looking considering now.  
  
“I thought that's why you were here,” he said. “To talk about this.”  
  
It was Jeremy's turn to stare.

Ryan sighed.

“It's okay,” Ryan said. “I don't expect anything. I know you aren't into me and that's...”  
  
“Not into you?” Jeremy interrupted him. “No, no, you're not into me!”  
  
Ryan raised an eyebrow.  
  
“You did smell me today, didn't you? Is your nose working okay?”  
  
“Yeah, I smelt an alpha who was drugged, reacting to some omega nearby. That doesn't … it doesn't... you never smelt like that around me before!” Jeremy protested.  
  
He would know. He was very attuned to the way Ryan smelt around him. And even more attuned to the way Ryan didn't smell around him.

“Cause you don't want me to,” Ryan countered. “Every time you smell interested you immediately try to force it down or get away from me.”  
  
Jeremy threw his hand up in a frustrated gesture.  
  
“Because all I get from you is polite disinterest and nothing more!” he yelled. “You don't smell at all like you would ever want me! Cause obviously you don't want me!”  
  
There it was. All the things he knew but thought he'd never have to say. Out in the open.

Averting his eyes he waited for Ryan's response.  
  
It came, but not in the way Jeremy had expected.  
  
Steel and gasoline and pears. For a moment he thought that the pheromones were still affecting Ryan. The smell filling the room was almost as intense as it had been in the morning. It took Jeremy's nose a moment to figure out the difference.

He looked up at Ryan, who was standing there with folded arms, silently staring at him as he voluntarily pushed all his want and need towards Jeremy.  
  
It was a message overwhelming in its honesty. It was overwhelming in many ways.  
  
“Oh,” Jeremy said weakly. His own body started reacting and Jeremy almost held it back on instinct. But then he stopped himself.  
  
Slowly he let his own scent diffuse in the space between the two, suddenly seeming both too small and too large.  
  
Ryan's eyes widened slightly and then he took a deep breath.  
  
“Apples and strawberries,” he mumbled, closing his eyes. “And grass and burning wood.”

If possible, Ryan’s own smell seemed to intensify even more. It was intoxicating, even more so than it had been in the laboratory because this time it was done on purpose. Not just Ryan’s body wanting him. Ryan himself showing just how much he wanted Jeremy.

Slowly he stepped towards Ryan, still hesitating even now.

“You said, you don’t want this,” he said. “In the lab, you said you don’t want to do this.”

Ryan let out a humorless laugh.

“I thought it was just me. And I didn’t … you are a good friend, Jeremy. I didn’t want to ruin this. Trust me, keeping away from you in that shitty lab was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”

He looked at Jeremy, every part of him, his eyes, his voice, his smell, radiating honesty.  
  
“But I want you. I want you so fucking bad. I’ve never wanted anybody as much as I want you.”  
  
Jeremy could smell it. The want coming off from Ryan, overpowering and heady need, all of Ryan’s feeling out in the open. And underneath it all the soft and sweet smell of pure affection.  
  
Jeremy's mind felt dizzy. He took another step forward and another and suddenly he was touching Ryan, tugging him closer and burying his face in his neck, Ryan doing the same.  
  
They stood there, tightly holding each other, just breathing in for a long moment. Ryan's scent was everywhere around him, mixing with his own, the two of them fully mirroring each other’s scents.  
  
Ryan moved just a bit then, taking Jeremy's head between his hands and kissing him softly. Jeremy returned the kiss, his mind filled with nothing but Ryan and his scent.  
  
Then something occurred to him and he suddenly groaned. Ryan stopped kissing him, moving slightly away but not very far.  
  
“What?” he asked.  
  
“We could have fucked so many times!” Jeremy groaned. “You owe me three lonely heats, you asshole!”  
  
For a moment Ryan just stared at him again but then he laughed and pulled Jeremy back towards him and towards his scent.

And Jeremy figured that they didn't even need to fuck for him to know that Ryan wanted him. Not when he smelled like this. When they both smelled like this.  
  
Pears and apples and strawberries, perfectly mixed together.


End file.
